It Is Much Too Late
by Aimlessly Unknown
Summary: Her son loved the stories of the Doctor, and she had so many to tell him. /"He calls you his hero." "I'm no one's hero."/


Her son snuggled into her side, his tawny head of hair ruffled by the cotton of her tee-shirt. She wrapped her long arms around him, twining her long nails into his hair, and stroking gently; he let out a soft yawn, one he attempted to bury underneath his next question.

"Tell me the story of _Him_ again?" He asked, looking up with large grey eyes. She smiled gently down at him, pulling him closer and leaning back in her seat to accommodate herself.

"Are you sure? You've heard it so many times before, Oliver; perhaps a new one?" She offered knowing he would never agree. Her boy never tired of _His_ story. Him and his idea of adventure reaching out for the newest story by his hero; she never told the same story – but it always had the same plot. Always the same: adventure, rescue, tea, and fun.

Stories woven through history, stories he told her personally, stories they shared. All things she cherished greatly. Something she would take her to her grave – no matter what her husband said about her and her obsession. She'd always obsessed over things; making them bigger than they were but this was no exaggeration – this man, this story, was all she had of times when the world was bright and new. When all the worlds were bright and new; she told her husband she loved him, always and forever, she couldn't imagine life without him – it utterly hurt inside when she tried, and yet. Yet if that man came back for her she wouldn't hesitate. She would run off with him, bringing her Oliver with her, and one day she would return to her husband but there was something so magical about _Him_ that she couldn't contain it.

She did not love him, not like she loved her husband, but there was an affection there that couldn't be resisted. She was, like so many others, reliant upon _Him_ and loved _Him_ in a way. In every way. But not where it counted. She couldn't kiss him, couldn't make love with him. She could hold his hand and hug him; could keep him close to her and love him in her own way, and that was enough for him and her.

"Well, Oliver, if you're sure." She said. Her voice had changed so much since she was with _Him_. Everything had. She talked much more maturely – as if she'd been muted in a way, blurred by the worlds she had seen. She didn't snap as often, there was too much damaged caused by a stray word for her to try again. And sarcasm wasn't her friend. Sarcasm was something lost, like the stars and worlds so long ago that no longer could exist.

Oliver smiled, exposing the gap in his teeth, "I'm sure, Mummy!"

She held him closer, if it was even possible.

"There was a boy," She began mysteriously, "A very strange and gentle boy. They say he wandered very far, very far over land and sea. Over stars, even. Across galaxies and dreams where cities sang, where shadows cried, and where rivers danced.

"He wasn't very shy, and yet he was a very sad, boy, actually." She said lowly, her voice like gravel. _He_ was so sad, so often. That stray look in _His_ eye as he spoke of a planet that never existed. A planet connected to a War that erased their very timeline and so the planet could never be revisited because it never existed. All because of _Him_. Because of a war that _He_ caused; or at least that's how _He_ described it.

"Was he always sad, Mummy?" Oliver asked.

"Yes," She said, "I believe he was; oh, he'd never let you see it, but he was very sad."

"And then what?" Oliver said, wanting to be told the story of the man becoming happy again; after all, all stories had a happy ending.

"Well," She continued, "He spent all his time traveling. Off to one planet," She swiped a hand across the air, as if pointing to a planet, "And then to another, saving people all around. Making little boys laugh." She tickled her son softly, making him giggle desperately.

"And there was this girl." She continued, "A little girl that was star-struck by this man."

"I thought you said he was a boy!" Oliver said, always catching the details. She beamed at him; her boy was so bright – so brilliant.

"He was both," She said, "He could be both a boy and a man. A bit of everything, he was."

Her son doesn't seem to understand. He has known only the idea of a boy becoming a man, there was no in between for him. She ignored his curious gaze and kept speaking; her tone turning into that of a forlorn friend speaking of a ghost. She kept a sort of reverence in her tone that made her son sit up and listen carefully.

"Was that girl _you_, Mommy?" He asked.

She laughed, "Oh it was everyone. There wasn't a person alive that wasn't starstruck by him."

"Did they all love him?" There was knowledge in the question; that her Oliver knew that the Doctor could be loved. Even this beautiful, little boy could love the Doctor despite his crimes; the crimes that he swore no one would love him for – and yet Rose did. Rose Tyler loved the Doctor and now Oliver cared. Her Oliver would absolve him of his sins and the Doctor couldn't argue. Or so she hoped. She hoped a lot of things nowadays. Hoped the stars would always shine, hoped people would always hope, and hoped, desperately, that she could see that madman in a police box once more.

"Very much; he used to say that it was a law that people love him. Not that he thought he deserved it." She told her boy; speaking of things he was too young to understand. Poor thing, he would never understand – not until he grew up, at least.

"But he did! You said so, yourself!" Oliver protested; believing so much of what his mother said. Trusting every word out of her mouth as if it was of God himself and not the ramblings of a woman they once called a lunatic.

She smiled down at him, the wrinkles on her face casting shadows, "Yes, yes I did. But not all people can see their own brilliance, darling."

Oliver reached up with a pudgy hand to hold the necklace around the woman's neck; a key of all things, "Did he love them back, Mommy?"

The air around them grew heavy – the idea of the Doctor doing anything but loving the world making her heart heavy and icy. She took the key from his hand, dropping it down her shirt to rest on her chest – just over the cross that laid there. It suddenly felt heavy, the key. It left a weight on her chest that couldn't be lifted.

"Yes, he loved all of life itself." She whispered, eyes pressed shut. Her beloved boy pressed his hand on her cross, lifting it, as if trying to bear the weight that his mother struggled under. The weight of being with a man that knew at any moment she could leave. The weight of loving her husband so much but not nearly enough, to show him how much she cared by always looking towards the sky; she remembered whispering '_TARDIS_' in her sleep and waking to find sad eyes and lines carved by betrayal.

"But, I mean, did he love them like you love Daddy? Or like Daddy loves you?" Such an innocent question from such a nervous boy – a boy that knew the depth of his mother's love wouldn't stretch deep enough to cover what she felt for _Him_. It was cruel on her part, but she couldn't help it. She couldn't stop that leap in her chest when she saw a man with pinstripes. She didn't love him like Rose did. Never could. But she loved him enough.

"No; there was only one he loved like that." She told him, recalling brown eyes and blonde hair. She thought 'pink and yellow'. She thought 'brilliant'.

He asked, "Who?"

"She was brilliant, he used to say. Said she was brilliant and lovely and all the good things in the world." She told him softly. Her boy let out a yawn, a sign of his weariness, and she let him stay up. He would never sleep without knowing this story.

"So he loved you?" There was a devilish grin on his face; something he surely got from his father.

"It wasn't me, my darling not—!" She began, but was interrupted by the earnest idea of a young man. Of a baby boy.

"But you're the brilliantest, loveliest, and most greatest girl ever!" Oliver protested. He knew no one better than his mother. His lovely mother with her warm body, gentle voice, and the smartest lady he knew. She was his mother.

"You're a little charmer, aren't you?" She teased, tickling him briefly. He let out a breathy little laugh, the kind she had. His face lit up and with a smile he nestled back into her side as she stroked his tawny hair gently.

"Then who?"

She wove a tale of _Him_ and Rose. A tale of love and forever losing what mattered. Of a Void. Of pain and agony. Her boy listened with rapture, enjoying every moment of his mother's tale. With every passing word Oliver yawned more and more.

At ten o' clock she carried her boy to his room – his bright blue room – and tucked him into bed. With a kiss she let him drift off into his dreamland.

She stepped outside in her PJ's. There was a hush about the garden – the kind that only the most beautiful paintings cast over her as she stared in silence. The flowerbed blossomed beautifully with orchids, pansies, and wildflowers. Silently she moved towards the back of the garden. There was not a sound to be made but she could imagine the crickets chirping and a wind breezing through the trees, whistling its own tune.

"Still staring at the stars?" A voice came from behind. She turned around, too familiar to crashes and loud noises to be surprised by anything. A man stood there, bright green eyes and black hair. A bow tie around his neck and a tweed jacket wrapped around him like armour – like an ugly, fashion-homicidal armour.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"You know who I am." He said mysteriously. She didn't. She couldn't know who he was. He was a mystery – he was an enigma; and yet he felt familiar. There was a look in his eyes. Also there was a scent to his body that smelled of Time and hope. And there was a bright, blue box behind him.

She would launch herself at him but she couldn't anymore. She looked a good few years older than him now.

She smiled, "I tell him about you. My boy; he calls you his hero."

"I'm no one's hero." He told her darkly. As if the idea that he could be construed as _great_ or _marvelous_ or _a good man that went to war_ was blasphemy and she was filling her child's head with lies and dreams waiting to be broken.

"Will you take him with you?" She asked, "When he grows up. I know you can't take me anymore. Bit old for that."

He looked pained, "You're not old."

"Don't lie." She snapped, "You know I am. Stop telling yourself I'm not."

For a moment there were shadows in his eyes. For a moment he looked all his nine-hundred years of age. For a moment he was broken and she did not dare try to fix him. For a moment, just a moment, he looked lost and not even the TARDIS could lead him home.

But the moment passed and he grinned wildly, the idea of a broken Doctor fading behind years of love and adventure. Inside she screamed because everyone was so blind, chose to be blind, so as not to see the scars his war had wrought. But she was no worse, and thought of it no more.

He told her to 'hold on' and walked back into the TARDIS. For a moment it disappeared and then reappeared seconds later. Sudden memory of seeing him before; her promising that she would stay young, laughing heartily, and that look in her eye as she places a hand on her swollen belly. Telling him that she would tell her child all about him and one day, he promised he would take her child with him.

She glared at him, "Going back in my past and telling me not to call myself old won't change the fact that I am old, Pinstripes."

"Tweed now," He said, "Tweed is cool."

Hatred boils under her skin – he can't be Tweed, he will never be Tweed. Because being Tweed means he forgot Pinstripes. He forgot love and adventure and _hold on_. He forgot all his brilliant companions – all his hope and cherishing of them. He forgot – and to her – that is unacceptable.

"You remember us, yeah?" She asked.

His eyes grew gaunt and he did not speak for a long time.

"More than you know." There was pain in his voice. Sheer pain that effused itself from his new body; but the pain was quite familiar. She knew this.

And he stepped back into the TARDIS and left. She did not say goodbye, she did not feel affronted. She would see him again. Once more in time – in the past or the present, it didn't matter. She would always see him one more time.

So she turned to enter her home and, for a moment, deluded herself into thinking she made the right choice by not going with him.

"I'll be waiting." She whispered to the stars.

/


End file.
